Wednesday, February 18, 2009

The latest calamity to befall the cabinet of hapless Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, was the "drunken" performance of his Minister of Finance, Shoichi Nakagawa, at a G7 meeting in Rome.

Nakagawa blamed his slurred performance on a heavy dose of cold medicine and jet lag. Nakagawa claimed he's imbibed no more than a glass of wine on his flight over from Japan. Nakagawa, who is known to like a drink, says he will resign after the government has passed its latest finance bill in the Japanese Diet and not before.

"I feel terribly sorry for the Japanese public as well as the Diet that such footage and words of mine were conveyed to the world," a contrite Mr Nakagawa told a parliamentary panel.